


Aftermath

by Talullah



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: AU, Finduilas lives, Gen, Tumblr: legendariumladiesapril
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-02 14:01:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6569089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talullah/pseuds/Talullah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finduilas was badly wounded but survived the spearing to the tree.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Legendarium Ladies April prompts for April 11.
> 
>  **General Prompt: Everybody Lives!**  
>  In particular in the Silmarillion (but not only there), many characters suffer an untimely death, and many times that is before they can unfold their full potential and change the story through their actions. For today’s prompt we’re asking you to go down the AU road and imagine what might happen if one of Tolkien’s female characters (or more than one!) had lived - what if Elenwë had made it across Helcaraxë? What if Morwen had made it into Brethil to find her children? What if Finduilas of Dol Amroth hadn’t withered away in Minas Tirith, or Primula Brandybuck hadn’t drowned? Explore how their continued existence might have led to different stories, for better or worse.  
> ________________________________________  
>  **Picture Prompt: Volcano by Minna Sundberg**  
> 
> 
> [Disclaimer/Blanket Statement](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Talullah/profile)

**Forest of Brethil, F.A. 495**

There had been a jangling litter, moving on and on. The searing pain kept her still. Something bitter in her lips, perhaps a poppy seed elixir. Strange voices whispered around her in a mannish language. Trees above rustled her name or some nonsense. Her hands and her feet were like floes of ice in a gelid lake of morbid sweat but her cheeks burned hot, the heat threatening the break the skin into cinders and ash. When she could open her eyes she saw the canopy and glimpses of starlight, never sun. She could not think, could not stay awake long enough to finish a thought, could not bear the direction her thoughts ran to.

She could not say for how long she had travelled in that state between life and death before they stopped. She was placed in a hut, the gentler hands of women now took care of her body, dressed her wound, washed her skin, combed her hair. She waited for death, but still they cared for her. Slowly, the fever faded and she spent more time awake, though still in pain.

An old woman, a healer with wrinkly face and grayed hair kept on asking her questions, whenever she came to feed her and change bandages. The woman tried a few Sindarin words with a heavy Doriathrim accent, tried mimicry and pantomime, but Finduilas persisted in offering her nothing more than a vacant stare. She did not care.

At night, she slept deeply, with no dreams she could remember. In the morning, she woke with her pillow stained. She ate what they gave her. She did not care.

One thought only sand through her mind: her father was dead, and so was Gwindor, every man, woman and child in Nargothrond. Before that, her Minas Tirith had fallen. Soon the others, elsewhere, would perish too. Turin was dead or was not. She did not care.

One afternoon, two women came to hut and spent the night in the cots besides hers. One was young, with golden hair, the other old, with a bitter line in the place of a mouth and steel gray eyes. Finduilas heard a different accent in their hushed voices. She did not care who they were, or where they had come from. She avoided their eyes and they ignored her.

The next day, a tall man – a elf in the garb of Doriath – came into the hut. Upon looking at her, he bowed slightly and then proceeded to ignore her presence, as he spoke at length with the human women. She was not used to the Doriathrim accent but dread ran through her like an autumn river when she heard their names: Morwen and Nienor.

She heard their complicated discussion, Mablung and Morwen arguing for the three of them to return to Doriath and leave the Nienor there, then mother and daughter bickering over the scattered information they had gathered on the whereabouts of Túrin and where they should go next.

Her heart beat faster at each mention of his name. ‘No,’ she wanted to say. ‘No, do not go in search of Túrin. Nothing good will come of it. She tried to sit up, opened her mouth to speak but only a pained wail left her lips before she fainted. When she woke, they were gone and she breathed easy as the old healer ran a cold, soothing hand over her forehead.

* * *

When she could walk a few steps at a time, she graced the old healer with a name. “Elleth,” she said, pointing at her own chest.

The woman smiled and shrugged, not in the least fooled. Then, in her broken Sindarin, she gave her a set of instructions for her to start moving her left arm lest the wound in her shoulder healed badly and she lost function altogether. Finduilas would have shrugged in return, had it not hurt so badly. What good was function in an arm when there was no one left to hold? An insidious voice inside her head told her that Túrin still lived. Bile came to her mouth.

* * *

Two seasons passed, perhaps three. Finduilas did not bother counting. The place she had been carried to was not even a village, but rather an outpost of Ephel Brandir, on Amon Obel. Two Haladin families lived there, presumably keeping watch. She found it odd that there were women in what would be an outpost for warriors and scouts, until she remembered the roots of this people and the tales of the fierce Haleth. Even the old healer woman dressed in leather armour and kept her bow and quiver close.

Among then, Finduilas found ways of making herself busy, useful, and only broke silence when there was no other option. At times she wondered why life had held such a tenacious grip on her, who had no love left for it, but then there were rabbits to skin, roots to boil, berries to pick and her thoughts resumed to the simpler things at hand.

Mablung, the tall Doriathrim elf, came by one day, looking for Nienor. Finduilas’s heart sank as she listened to his tale, with the others, by the communal fire. Cursed indeed were the children of Húrin, as Túrin had so often told her, she thought, recoiling in horror. Succumbing to an urge to escape, she retreated quietly, leaving into the dark. She did not return to her hut to pack some food. She did not look for a thicker cloak to borrow or hardier boots. She simply left into the forest, praying to whomever still listened for death, a quick, merciful one, a slippery ravine, a lightning bolt falling from the sky, or, if those could not be had, a bear hungry enough to kill her quickly. Lore said that her destination should be the Halls of Mandos. She was not sure she would ever want to leave such a place, once she had entered it.

So lost she was in thought that she did not hear the steps behind her before a strong hand held her arm. She cried out loud.

“Apologies, lady,” Mablung said, releasing his grip. “For a moment I forgot which shoulder was hurt.”

Finduilas nodded and continued walking into the woods her head lowered against the rising wind.

“Doriath is that way,” Mablung said to her back.

She briefly turned to see where he pointed and continued on her path.

“Your aunt is there. I am going to return home now,” Mablung said. Finduilas kept on walking.

“My aunt?” Finduilas asked in disbelief.

“The Lady Galadriel?” Mablung cocked an eyebrow.

“How did you…”

“I remembered you, from the Mereth Aderthad. I never forget a face. Besides, Noldor, blonde, obviously high-bred, and in the vicinity of a city recently fallen… It was not a wild guess. And you do look very much like your aunt Galadriel. Same eyes, same nose, the hair.”

Finduilas stared at him open-mouthed for an instant, before turning her back to him and start walking again along the path.

“You could come with me,” Mablung added, shouting, as the distance between them kept growing. “You would be welcome!”

Finduilas turned her head to look at him and tripped on a root, falling hard on her bad shoulder. She held her breath, trying not to let out a sound out. Tears burned her eyes as she held them. Mablung ran to her before she could get up and knelt by her side, taking her in his arms. It was the first time since Nargothrond had fallen that she was held like a person, not like a patient or like meat. Her breath fell short. She tried to free herself, but her bad arm ached terribly and in her fall her cloak had wrapped itself around her.

Mablung ran his hand through her hair and cooed soft words to her, baffling Finduilas until she realized she was sobbing like a child. She took several deep breaths and tried to compose herself. She was no longer the lady of a great realm but she was still from the blood of Finwë.

“Shh, you are in shock,” Mablung said, when she tried to get up.

“From a little fall?” Finduilas shot back with venom.

“From what you heard me say back there,” Mablung said, nodding in the direction of the settlement. “Where are you going? After Túrin?”

Finduilas felt lightheaded for a moment. “No!” she said. “No…” she added a moment later. “Why would you think that?”

“Your face, when I spoke of Túrin. You wore the expression of someone who was more than a mere acquaintance.”

Finduilas shook her head. “We were close, at one time. I thought that he was dead until his mother and sister passed through here. Now you tell me this awful tale. Are you not going back to find Nienor?”

Mablung moved, uneasy, and rose to his feet, helping Finduilas up in the same motion. “I have done all that I could. I could go north again, to Ephel Brandir, and wait or start searching from there. But quite frankly, there is not a great chance that she still lives. I did not tell this to the others, but the enchantment the dragon lay upon her… she was like a child who knows nothing. Imagine a person who can remember nothing, not even her own name, lost in an orc ridden forest. How long would she last before she died of hunger or got caught by Orcs or attacked by an animal? I’ve searched for weeks, everywhere I could.”

Finduilas pressed her lips. She had spoken more in that brief exchange than she had in weeks. She felt she should point out to Mablung her own example, the elf-woman left for dead, pinned to a tree, but she could not speak of that.

Mablung extended his hand to her. “Come with me to Doriath. The king has always welcomed the children of his kin.”

Finduilas shook her head and looked at her feet, trying to think. Dying in the forest. Meeting Túrin again. Orcs and their filth. Staying with the Haladin, until they perished too. Bringing her curse to Doriath. Living under the rule of Thingol, who had played a part in her uncle’s demise, with his callous demand of Beren. She could not make sense of anything.

Mablung took her hand and gently pulled. “Come,” he besieged.

She resisted. “I do not want anyone to know who I am. They simply know me as Elleth but even that might be too telling.”

Mablung thought for a moment. “From what I gathered, they do not exchange news with Ephel Brandir too often. We could ask them to say that you died. I do not think they would object to that. The old woman seems to like you and she is the one who really has a hand on what goes on here.”

Finduilas stared at him. “I… I do not know.”

“I have an idea,” Mablung said. “Trust me.”

The words hit Finduilas like a slap in the face. Túrin had said the exact same words before proposing the construction of the bridge. But Mablung smiled at her, the kind smile of a man who knows where both his feet stand.

Finduilas followed him.

* * *

They spent the night at the settlement. The old woman and her daughter prepared a pack for her. Everyone seemed to agree that the elf-woman belonged with people of her kind. Finduilas wondered if they were happy to be rid of her, quickly chastising herself for the unkind thought when the old woman gifted her with a thick fur cloak for the journey. After dinner, Mablung talked at length with the elder woman. Finduilas did not listen too closely. Mablung’s plan seemed to involve renaming an old stone tomb near the place Morgoth’s filth had left her for dead and saying she lay underneath it. It might as well be.

The Haladin men and women bid her warm farewells for they would be leaving in the early dawn, before anyone was up. She did not sleep, though, once they were in the hut. From Mablung’s absolute stillness, she gathered he did not sleep either. The word Túrin echoed in her mind, making her heart race. Would she really turn her back on him now that there was nothing left? Should she not be searching for his sister? A fleeting image of Finduilas arriving at Túrin’s side with the fair Nienor, delivering her, and collecting the gratitude and love of the dark Turambar… What a fantasy! She would never have it. Túrin had no love in his heart to give to anyone, she understood that now. 

He was not to blame for being ensnared by the dragon’s magic. She had felt it herself, powerful and nauseating, emanating from the beast when they had passed by him. It had been as if she was swimming inside a mountain of fire, swallowed whole by the sickening evil without the monster even sparing her a glance. Túrin had to be overwhelmed. But Túrin no longer held a place in her dreams. She now saw him as Gwindor had so vehemently tried to describe to her dead ears. And she was terrified.

She would follow Mablung to Doriath and away from the ruins of her life.

_Finis  
April 2016_

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't use the poetry prompt for this fic, because it stubbornly didn't want to fit, not even in a flashback, but I'm leaving it here, because it is truly lovely.
> 
>  **Poetry Prompt: To the Tune of ‘Like a Dream’, by Li Qingzhao**  
>  I always remember the sunset  
> over the pavilion by the river.  
> So tipsy, we could not find our way home.  
> Our interest exhausted, the evening late,  
> we tried to turn the boat homeward.  
> By mistake, we entered deep within the lotus bed.  
> Row! Row the boat!  
> A flock of herons, frightened,  
> suddenly flew skyward.


End file.
